Field
Aspects of the present invention generally relate to a technique when an image or an item is displayed.
Description of the Related Art
When editing a moving image, a slide show, etc., a user combines a plurality of material images and/or material moving images to generate a user's unique combined moving image or the like. When generating such a combined moving image, the user generates one combined moving image by specifying a desired material that the user wants to contain in the combined moving image from a plurality of material images and/or material moving images. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-86218 discusses that, when moving images from among a plurality of moving images are combined with one another, a moving image picked by a mouse click is combined to a moving image located at a destination to which the moving image picked by the mouse click is moved with a drag operation. In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-86218, the moving image picked by the mouse click is combined with the moving image located at the destination to which the moving image picked by the mouse click is moved so as to be in a position subsequent to the moving image located at the destination.
When generating a combined moving image, the user can find a position where the user wants to insert some materials in an already existing combined moving image before deciding materials to insert. For example, when the user attempts to make a combined moving image interesting by inserting a material having a different tone at a position where materials of similar scenery moving images are consecutively lined up in the combined moving image, in the method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-86218, the user first selects moving images to be combined with one another even though the user has already decided a position to insert a moving image. More specifically, in the method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-86218, the user cannot specify a position to insert a moving image until selecting moving images to be combined with one another, and therefore should again search for the position where the user has decided to insert the material and drag the selected material to the rediscovered position after selecting the material having a different tone. In this manner, even when the user finds a position where the user wants to insert some kind of material, the user cannot specify the position as a position to insert a material unless first selecting materials. The operational usability is therefore impaired. Further, in the method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-86218, when already having in mind a position where the user wants to insert an item, such as a material, the user should remember materials between which the user has decided to insert the item while selecting the material to insert at the position.
The user can rearrange a plurality of items arranged in a row so as to line up them in an order desired by the user. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-266192 discusses that an icon in an icon row that is desired to be reordered is extracted from the icon row, and a position where the extracted icon is inserted is changed by a scroll of the icon row from which the extracted icon has been removed. Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2015-88159 discusses that, when a swipe operation is performed starting from an image to be interchanged as a starting position among the images displayed in a manner arranged in one row, a display position of this image is interchanged with a display position of an image located at a position where the swipe operation is ended.
There is a demand for performing such an editing operation that an item, such as an image and an icon, is rearranged in the order desired by the user with use of a limited display area. With the method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-266192, the user performs an operation for extracting an icon to reorder from the row, and changing an insertion position of the extracted icon. Therefore, this method requires provision of an area where the extracted icon is displayed separately from an area where the icon row is displayed. However, a display screen including a limited available display area may not be large enough to fully display the extracted icon in the display area. With the method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2015-88159, it becomes difficult to recognize images in an image row between which an image to be interchanged will be inserted, i.e., it becomes difficult for the user to recognize a position where the image to be interchanged will be inserted while performing the interchange operation. There is therefore a possibility that the operational usability is impaired.
A plurality of images can be combined with one another to form a series of images. A display unit discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-98667 displays an area where thumbnails corresponding to moving images are displayed in a list, and a selected scenario display field where thumbnails of moving images to be played back as a scenario file are displayed. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-98667 also discusses that dragging a thumbnail from the list of thumbnails to the selected scenario display field causes the dragged thumbnail to be added to the selected scenario display field, and a symbol to be added to the already-selected thumbnail in the list of thumbnails. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-98667 also discusses that dragging a thumbnail displayed in the selected scenario display field out of the selected scenario display field enables the thumbnail to be removed from the selected scenario display field.
The user can find an image that the user wants to remove from among listed images in an image list in the middle of an operation for selecting images. With the method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-98667, even when finding a thumbnail that the user wants to remove in a list of thumbnails, the user should search for this thumbnail in the selected scenario display field to remove that. In other words, the user not only has to additionally perform an operation for searching for the image from the area where the selected images are displayed but also cannot remove the unnecessary image quickly in the middle of the selection operation. The operational usability for the user is therefore impaired.
There is known a technique for rearranging a plurality of items arranged in a row so as to line up them in the order desired by the user with a touch operation. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2015-88159 discusses that, when a swipe operation is performed starting from an image to be interchanged as the starting position among the images displayed in the manner arranged in one row, a display position of an image located at a position where the swipe operation is ended is interchanged with a display position of the image to be interchanged. There is also known a technique for, when an operation target is operated with a touch operation, displaying the operation target, such as an icon, at a position slightly shifted from a touched position so as to prevent the operation target from being hidden by a finger performing the touch operation. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2013-93043 discusses that an item displayed in a touched area is displayed at a position slightly shifted from the touched point.
On an apparatus equipped with only a small display, such as a compact electronic apparatus, even when rearranging a plurality of items, the user should rearrange them within the limited display area. With the method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2015-88159, when an image to be interchanged in terms of the arrangement order is moved by a swipe operation, image visibility is reduced if an image arranged in one row and the image to be interchanged overlap each other. If an image to be interchanged is displayed at a position different from a touched position so as to be prevented from overlapping with other image, like the display method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2013-93043, the image to be interchanged may not be fully displayed because of the limited display area.